- Spain: Prime minister’s wife charged with corruption
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“Begoña Gómez, the wife of Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has been charged with embezzlement, influence peddling, corruption in business dealings and misappropriation of funds at the end of a two-year investigation by a judge in Madrid. Gómez, 55, has been accused of using her influence as the wife of the socialist prime minister to secure and manage a post at Madrid’s Complutense University, and of using public resources and personal connections to further her private interests. … The investigation into Gómez was triggered by a complaint from Manos Limpias (Clean Hands), a self-styled trade union with far-right links that has a history of using the courts to pursue those it deems a threat to Spain’s democratic interests.” (04/14/26)
- Hezbollah official says the group won’t abide by any agreements from Lebanon-Israel talks in the US
Source: Associated Press
“The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah will not abide by any agreements that may result from the direct Lebanon-Israel talks in the United States, negotiations it firmly opposes, a senior Hezbollah official said Monday. Wafiq Safa, a high-ranking member of Hezbollah’s political council, spoke on the eve of the talks expected in Washington between Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to the U.S. It will be the first time in decades that envoys from Lebanon and Israel, which do not have diplomatic relations, meet face-to-face in direct talks. ‘As for the outcomes of this negotiation between Lebanon and the Israeli enemy, we are not interested in or concerned with them at all,’ Safa told The Associated Press. ‘We are not bound by what they agree to,’ he added in a rare interview with international media.” (04/14/26)
https://apnews.com/article/hezbollah-lebanon-israel-wafiq-safa-a7af20b76ace9a34d8f641bca91e0b23
- US Snail Union Launches Ad Campaign Promoting Mail Voting as Trump Assails the Method
Source: US News & World Report
“A major U.S. Postal Service union is launching a national TV ad campaign promoting voting by mail, stepping into a politically charged debate as skepticism about mail-in ballots has been raised by President Donald Trump and others. The 30-second message features a variety of voters, among them a busy farmer and a flight attendant, explaining why they cast their ballots by mail. Sponsored by the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union, the advertising campaign announced Tuesday will begin airing this week in Ohio, where Union Army soldiers during the Civil War cast the first mail ballots in 1864. It will then move to other states.” (04/14/26)
- France: Regime seeks ban of Ye concert in Marseille
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“France’s interior minister is seeking to block US rapper Kanye West from performing in the southern city of Marseille in June due to his antisemitic remarks, a source close to the minister said on Tuesday. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez is ‘highly determined’ to ban the June 11 concert at Marseille’s Velodrome stadium and is exploring “all possibilities”, the source said. West, 48, has been heavily criticised for making antisemitic remarks and voicing admiration for Adolf Hitler. Britain has blocked the US rapper, also known as Ye, from entering the country due to his outbursts, prompting organisers of a festival he was to headline to cancel the July event.” (04/14/26)
- US wholesale prices surged 4% last month as the Iran war sent energy prices soaring
Source: Seattle Times
“U.S. wholesale prices surged last month as the Iran war drove up the cost of energy. The Labor Department reported Tuesday that its producer price index — which measures inflation before it hits consumers — rose 0.5% from February and 4% from March 2025. The year-over-year gains was the biggest in more than three years. Energy prices surged 8.5% from February. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core producer prices rose a modest 0.1% from February and 3.8% from a year earlier. The gains in wholesale prices were smaller than economists had forecast.” (04/14/26)
- Pakistan: Hospital at centre of child HIV outbreak caught reusing syringes in undercover filming
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Mohammed Amin was eight when he died shortly after testing positive for HIV. His fevers were so bad that he insisted on sleeping in the rain, and he writhed in pain ‘like he’d been thrown in hot oil,’ says his mother, Sughra. ‘He used to fight with me, but he also loved me,’ 10-year-old Asma says as she kneels at her younger brother’s graveside. Not long after her brother contracted the virus, Asma was also diagnosed with HIV. Her family believe both children contracted it from injections with contaminated needles during routine medical treatment at a government hospital in Taunsa, in the province of Punjab, Pakistan. They are two of the 331 children that BBC Eye has identified as testing positive for HIV in the city between November 2024 and October 2025.” (04/14/26)
- Founder of Chinese property giant Evergrande admits theft, fraud, bribery
Source: United Press International
“The founder and former chairman of Chinese property giant China Evergrande Group pleaded guilty Tuesday to a slew of charges, including embezzlement, securities fraud and corporate graft at a trial in the southern city of Shenzhen. Hui Ka Yan admitted ‘illegally absorbing public deposits’ where buyers’ down payments on apartments off-plan were used to fund hundreds of other projects in the case in which Evergrande Real Estate Group also faced a similar set of charges, the Intermediate People’s Court of Shenzhen said in a statement online. Evergrande took in millions of dollars from buyers that, instead of being used to complete the properties they were purchasing, were diverted to new developments, the court heard.” (04/14/26)
- Greece: Police using masked migrants to forcibly push other migrants back across border
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Police in Greece have been recruiting migrants to violently push other migrants back across its land border with Turkey, according to wide-ranging evidence uncovered by the BBC. We have seen internal police documents in which guards describe how the recruitment of so-called mercenaries was ordered and overseen by senior officers. Our findings reveal allegations of brutality, with witnesses reporting migrants being stripped, robbed, beaten and even sexually assaulted. It has been claimed that mercenaries have been unofficially employed on the border since at least 2020. The Greek prime minister told the BBC he was ‘totally unaware’ about allegations of the use of migrants for pushbacks, while the country’s authorities have not responded to our written detailed requests for comment.” (04/14/26)
- Amazon signs $11.57 billion deal for satellite firm Globalstar to challenge Musk’s Starlink
Source: Yahoo! Finance
“Amazon.com said on Tuesday it would acquire Globalstar in an $11.57 billion deal, bolstering its fledgling satellite business as it tries to catch up with Elon Musk’s Starlink. Tech companies are pouring in billions of dollars to capture the lucrative market for satellite-based connectivity, but it will be a tall order to match Starlink’s 10,000-unit-strong network. Through the deal, Amazon adds Globalstar’s two dozen satellites to its existing network of more than 200. Amazon has been working to ramp up its network by deploying about 3,200 satellites in Earth’s low orbit by 2029, with roughly half required to be in place by a July regulatory deadline. It is also preparing to roll out its satellite internet services later this year.” (04/14/26)
https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/amazon-signs-11-57-billion-120533254.html
- Nothing Special About April 15 — Every Day is Tax Day
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“The deadline for filing US federal income tax returns falls (usually) on April 15, a date that’s worked its way into the American vocabulary as ‘tax day.’ That’s really not a very accurate term. For one thing, most Americans pay all sorts of other taxes (sales taxes, excise taxes, property taxes, etc.) all the time. You can’t swing a cat without hitting a tax … and there’s probably a tax on swinging cats, which I recommend against doing for all kinds of reasons other than potential tax implications. For another, most Americans pay federal income tax year-round through withholding from their paychecks (or quarterly ‘estimated’ payments). April 15 is just the day when the government demands that you do their paperwork for them to make sure they took as much as they wanted to take from you last year.” (04/14/26)
- The Art of Failure
Source: Antiwar.com
by Kyle Anzalone“Donald Trump sold himself to the American people as the ultimate dealmaker during his first run for President. He argued that Obama’s poor negotiating skills had impoverished the American people, and he would Make America Great Again by getting tough with both allies and adversaries. The American people bought the narrative and elected him over Hillary Clinton in 2016. In the President’s five years in office, he had been unable to cement any agreement that benefited Americans. … It should come as no surprise that Saturday’s talks in Pakistan to end the conflict failed. Trump has proven he is unable to take a good deal when it is gifted to him.” (04/14/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/kyle_anzalone/2026/04/13/the-art-of-failure
- Bootleggers, Baptists, and Others Who Benefit From Tax Complexity
Source: The Daily Economy
by Julia R Cartwright“To understand the American tax code, you first need to understand a theory developed while watching liquor regulations in the American South. Economist Bruce Yandle noticed that two groups supported Sunday alcohol bans: Baptist ministers, who wanted to protect communities from drinking, and bootleggers, who wanted to eliminate their competition for a day. The two groups had different motives, but pushed for the same policy. Yandle called this dynamic ‘bootleggers and Baptists,’ and it helps explain nearly every major provision in the US tax code.” (04/14/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/bootleggers-baptists-and-who-benefits-from-tax-complexity/
- Trump risks war backlash from the heartland: American farmers
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Blaise Malley“Even if Gulf shipping reopens tomorrow, supply lags and energy costs are driving fertilizer and other input costs sky high — just in time for planting season.” (04/14/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/strait-of-hormuz-fertilizer/
- The Critical Issue Is Not Dependence on Oil, but the Destruction Caused by States
Source: Ludwig Mises Institute
by Alejandro A Tagliavini“We have long normalized the idea that economics is the use of scarce resources. The problem is that, if resources are scarce, the only option left is to decide how to allocate them, leading to a real struggle — sometimes violent — between the parties to see who gets what little there is. … Creation is infinite; it has no limits as long as the order of the cosmos—the order of nature that predates humankind — is respected. In contrast, rationalism, state constructivism, and attempts to impose an ‘order’ that — not arising spontaneously from society — must be coercively imposed using the monopoly on violence that states claim for this purpose clashes with social nature and enters into a conflict that only destroys.” (04/14/26)
https://mises.org/power-market/critical-issue-not-dependence-oil-destruction-caused-states
- Eric Swalwell’s enablers knew the truth, and protected him anyway
Source: Fox News
by Jonathan Turley“The resignation of Rep. Eric Swalwell [D-CA] came with one of the most spectacular falls in political history. Just days ago, Swalwell was the leading Democratic candidate for governor of California and positioned to be one of two final candidates, with the other a Republican. He expected that, regardless of his unpopularity, California Democrats would never vote for a Republican. Now Swalwell has pulled out of the race, left Congress, and was even tossed out of the home of a billionaire who had been letting him crash there during the scandal. Swalwell continues to deny the allegations against him and has pledged to fight them. For the record, I have been one of Swalwell’s most vocal critics for the last 10 years. Yet while I am not surprised by the allegations, I am surprised by how quickly Swalwell was abandoned by his political patrons in Congress and the unions.” (04/14/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/jonathan-turley-eric-swalwells-enablers-knew-truth-protected-anyway
- What the Economic Report of the President Gets Wrong and Right About Housing Supply
Source: Cato Institute
by Stephen Slivinski“Yesterday, the President’s Council of Economic Advisers issued its annual Economic Report of the President. Like every year, it’s a wide-ranging analysis of several hot-button economic topics. While I can’t speak to the reliability of the analysis in every chapter, one thing that stands out is the chapter on housing supply. Like any policy document written by committee and expected to rationalize even the least justifiable policies of an administration, it doesn’t get everything right. Yet it doesn’t get everything wrong either.” (04/14/26)
https://www.cato.org/blog/what-economic-report-president-gets-wrong-right-about-housing-supply
- Trump’s crusade against the Vatican
Source: spiked
by Georgina Mumford“Trump is not the first president to fall out with the Holy Father. That said, this latest outburst is worlds away from the ‘elegant row’ between Theodore Roosevelt and Pope Pius during the Second World War, or the cordial scolding given to Bill Clinton by Pope John Paul over abortion legislation. Trump’s tantrum comes after months of tension between the White House and the Holy See – where, much to his dismay, religious officials have failed to don their MAGA hats and cheer on America’s war with Iran. … American Catholics – who comprise both 20 per cent of the US population and 22 per cent of those who cast their vote for Trump in 2024 – will no doubt be baffled by Trump’s attacks on the pontiff. Moreover, his AI-powered Jesus impersonation managed to upset even the most enthusiastic of evangelical MAGA loyalists.” (04/14/26)
- Fifteen Bucks a Signature: The Crisis of Money in US Politics Is Growing
Source: The Nation
by Katrina Vanden Heuvel“There’s money to be made in California this spring, no start-up pitch or buzzy screenplay required. Instead, signatures are one of the state’s most coveted commodities: Campaigns are paying $15 apiece to those willing to collect them. Petition distributors can thank Sergey Brin for this pay bump. In an effort to kill California’s proposed billionaire tax, the Google cofounder and other local tycoons are funding a political group that has hiked the going rate for signatures collected in support of countermeasures. In all, foes of the wealth tax are expected to spend $75 million in their attempt to quash the proposal.” (04/14/26)
- Evolution Explains the Human Condition
Source: Persuasion
by Steven Pinker“In March 2026, three prominent thinkers died within a day of each other. Lavish obituaries immediately marked the deaths of the always-wrong environmentalist Paul Ehrlich and the often-obscure political philosopher Jürgen Habermas. But for two weeks after the death of Robert Trivers, one of the greatest evolutionary biologists since Charles Darwin, not a single major news source had noticed his passing. This despite Trivers’s singular accomplishment of showing how the endlessly fascinating complexities of human relations are grounded in the wellsprings of complex life. And despite the fact that the man’s life was itself an object of fascination. Trivers was no ordinary academic. He was privileged in upbringing but louche in lifestyle, personally endearing but at times obstreperous and irresponsible, otherworldly brilliant but forehead-slappingly foolish.” (04/14/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-strange-ways-people-actand-how
- Douglass Rejected That Black Gratitude to Lincoln Required Jingoistic Praise
Source: The UnPopulist
by Jonathan Marks“On the Emancipation Memorial’s 150th anniversary, Douglass’ oration needs rescuing from both left and right.” (04/14/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/douglass-rejected-that-black-gratitude
- 48-Hour Hold-Up
Source: The Pamphleteer
by Megan Podsiedlik“Today [Tuesday], the Tennessee senate will weigh in on a bill requiring local law enforcement agencies participating in the 287(g) program to honor ICE detainers. Under the proposal, participating local law enfocement agencies would be required to hold individuals subject to an immigration detainer for up to 48 hours, giving federal officials time to assume custody. Lay of the Land According to Tennessee’s new Centralized Immigration Enforcement Division, only 49 of the state’s 95 counties now participate in the 287(g) program.” [editor’s note: “Detainers” shouldn’t be honored. If ICE wants someone, ICE should go to an actual judge and get an actual warrant – TLK] (04/13/26)
- How Belief in Hell Makes Suffering Easier to Ignore
Source: Roads Go Ever On
by Bekah Graham“If you believe someone’s worst possible fate is eternal, then nothing happening to them now can ever feel as urgent.” (04/14/26)
https://bekahgwen.substack.com/p/how-belief-in-hell-makes-suffering
- The Danger of Allowing Good Intentions to Override the Constitution
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
“Walter E. Williams often made the point that a policy should be judged by whether it works, not by its good intentions. This warning is especially important because politicians are experts at declaring good intentions. If we judge them by their stated intentions alone, when their schemes end in disaster they could simply remind us that they meant well. Unfortunately, Professor Williams’s warnings went unheeded. In their book Who Killed The Constitution, Thomas E. Woods and Kevin R.C. Gutzman make a very similar argument about the irrelevance of good intentions.” (04/14/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/danger-allowing-good-intentions-override-constitution
- Right-wing Hypocrisy on Cuban and Venezuelan Socialism
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“On seeing the deep economic suffering of the Cuban people, who are now on the precipice of massive death by starvation and illness, American right-wingers love to blame Cuban socialism for what is occurring. They say that it’s not really the U.S. economic embargo that has played a critically important role in all this. And, they claim, it’s not President Trump’s and the U.S. national-security state’s oil blockade that has put the finishing touches on this horror story. The U.S. role in all this death and suffering is non-existent, the right-wingers steadfastly maintain. It’s all because of Cuba’s socialist economic system. A big part of the problem here is the moral blindness of the American right-wing when it comes to the U.S. government and, specifically, the U.S. national-security establishment.” (04/14/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/04/14/right-wing-hypocrisy-on-cuban-and-venezuelan-socialism/
- Hungary’s moving message to populists
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“Populist politicians in Europe, whether left or right who use tactics of demonization and division to amass power, have been put on notice. In a much-watched election on April 12, voters in Hungary ousted Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who epitomized the continent’s identity politics of fear and hate over the past 16 years. In record turnout, they soundly opted for Péter Magyar, an astute coalition-builder who overcame a smear campaign thrown at him by offering ‘a message of love’ to all Hungarians. In a speech after his Tisza party won a supermajority in Parliament, Mr. Magyar touched on the election’s meaning: ‘It is a sin to divide the nation.'” (04/13/26)
- Democrats Must Learn to Talk About National Defense
Source: Liberal Currents
by Peter Juul“Democrats would rather not talk about national defense. It’s a rather remarkable place for the party and its wonks to find themselves today. Four years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine inaugurated the most intense period of conventional military conflict in living memory—and on the doorstep of America’s longest and, until President Trump’s return to the White House fifteen months ago, strongest alliance—Democrats and sympathetic commentators on the broad center-left in the United States still cannot bring themselves to think much about questions surrounding hard power and the use of force.” (04/14/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/democrats-must-learn-to-talk-about-national-defense/
- What AI doomers won’t say about terrorism (but I will)
Source: Sex and the State
by Cathy Reisenwitz“It is trivially easy, in the year of our Lord 2026, to do a terrorism. Terrorism has always been trivially easy. So why do the doomers keep talking about how scared they are that AI will make it easier to do terrorism? It being hard is not the limiting factor. It has never been the limiting factor. There’s a reason they keep bringing up, as an example, the Sarin poisoning in Matsumoto, Japan. It’s the only instance of random weirdos using anything approaching advanced technology to do a mass murder. The 9/11 hijackers used the incredibly complex and hard-to-use technology otherwise known as ‘box cutters.'” (04/14/26)
https://cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/p/what-ai-doomers-wont-say-about-terrorism
- Taxing, Borrowing, and Printing: Three Ways America Pays for Government
Source: The Daily Economy
by Stefan Bartle“Tax bills are only the beginning. Borrowing and inflation also finance federal spending — in ways that are easier to ignore but harder to escape.” (04/14/26)
- What’s Next in Iran?
Source: Law & Liberty
by Paul D Miller“Washington must define its endgame in Iran, both for itself and for the Iranian people.” (04/14/26)
- The Moral Case for Nuclear Deterrence
Source: Law & LIberty
by Brian A Smith“In scholarly discussions of just war thought, nuclear weapons often serve as little more than terrifying symbols of injustice. Since 1945, many have argued that such weapons are incapable of being deployed in a just role, either in attacks or in a deterrent posture. These thinkers tend to view nukes as far too indiscriminate and entirely too prone to unleashing an escalatory spiral that none would survive. Such writers view nuclear weapons as intrinsically immoral, and there the discussion often ends. Realists tend to sidestep the moral challenge, shrug, and note that we live in an imperfect world—before moving on to what seems to them the real issues stemming from nuclear weapons: finding the right balance of ends, ways, and means for them in national security policy. But one need not embrace a more realistic view without rendering a moral account of these matters.” (04/14/26)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/the-moral-case-for-nuclear-deterrence/
- Will Migration From Blue States to Red States Give the GOP a Boost in the Electoral College? Not Necessarily.
Source: Reason
by Stephanie Slade“While many of the states that are growing are currently seen as safe red territory, today’s Republican-voting states could be tomorrow’s swing states.” (for publication 05/26)
https://reason.com/2026/04/14/the-electoral-college-gets-redder/
- The lesson behind Argentina’s miracle recovery, after rolling back socialism
Source: New York Post
by David Harsanyi“Capitalism remains undefeated. In 2023, over 100 leading economists from around the world, including progressive darling Thomas Piketty, signed a letter warning that ‘far-right’ Argentine presidential candidate Javier Milei’s policies, which were ‘rooted in laissez-faire economics,’ would cause ‘devastation,’ spike inflation, expand poverty and worsen unemployment. Celebrated economists never penned any open letters warning that the preceding Peronists’ or Kirchnerists’ perverse blend of fascism, socialism and unionism would drive Argentina — once one of world’s wealthiest nations — into destitution, unemployment, soaring inflation and bankruptcy. But that’s how it always goes.” (04/13/26)
- JD Vance Is the Most Mistreated Vice President Since … Well, The Last Two
Source: Washington Monthly
by Bill Scher“The vice president’s humiliations in Budapest and Islamabad raise the question: Why did Trump set him up to fail?” (04/14/26)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/04/14/jd-vance-is-the-most-mistreated-vice-president/
- To Win at All Costs
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Meryl Nass“Bayer bought Monsanto in 2018 for $63 billion — a few months before Monsanto lost its first liability case for causing non-Hodgkins lymphoma. I was not a close observer of the case, but the win seemed to hinge on documents obtained during discovery that revealed Monsanto knew a great deal about the injuries its product caused but deliberately hid those findings. Once there was a win — and the jury awarded the plaintiff with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma hundreds of millions, later reduced — the bandwagon effect began, with other lawyers seeking plaintiffs to sue Monsanto. … Bayer, a German company, hired a Texan, Bill Anderson, as CEO to come to its aid. CEO Anderson’s career hinged on stanching Bayer’s bleed. He initiated a very expensive series of legal and political strategies in the hopes that one would be successful. He also formed a new agricultural industry lobby group with a huge advertising budget.” (04/14/26)
- On Herd Mentality
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Jeb Smith“I no longer trust ‘we the people,’ because of the powers influencing them. Media and government schooling form their general ideas on reality and governance. Therefore, it’s not a case of the voter choosing the politicians. Instead, the system is conditioning and conforming the voter to the authorities’ desires. In democracies, the people are kept occupied working and paying taxes, too busy to acquire information outside the approved sources. You will find they know and care far more about the next iPhone than political philosophy. Of those who hold some interest, 95% just toe the party line, holding the same opinion as the primary media source they listen to. They lack both the desire and time to expand their horizons.” (04/14/26)
- This Wasn’t About Conversion Therapy – It Was About Free Speech
Source: RealClearPolitics
by Mark Mayfield & Megan Cannedy“Headlines for the past few weeks have capitalized on the cruel connotations surrounding conversion therapy, proclaiming that the United States Supreme Court struck down ‘a conversion therapy ban.’ The problem is that the Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision that included Justices Kagan and Sotomayor, told Colorado something that needed to be said: Your law was never actually about that. Chiles v. Salazar is being reported as a ‘conversion therapy’ ruling. That framing is a political bait-and-switch. What the court struck down was a government mandate on what therapists may say to a consenting minor, forbidden words depending entirely on which direction they pointed. That is not a ban on conversion therapy. That is ideological discrimination dressed in therapeutic clothing.” (04/14/26)
- The Final Frontier
Source: Quillette
by Stephen Fleming“Like the old Wild West, the Moon offers the prospect of resources to exploit and land to settle. Artemis II’s successful mission is just the beginning.” (04/14/26)
https://quillette.com/2026/04/14/destination-moon-artemis-nasa/
- Fourth Amendment Battle Won!: My Journey as a Constitutional Plaintiff
Source: Independent Institute
by Robert E Wright“Thanks to NCLA, I paid nothing to sue the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for violating my Fourth Amendment rights except some of my time, a little here and a little there, spread over half a decade. The suit never went to trial, so I did not even have to appear in court, though I could have gone to a preliminary hearing once if I wanted. I declined because I had already fled Massachusetts for distant freer climes. I also received nothing from the settlement except the satisfaction of helping to make my fellow Americans a little less like the subjects of a monarchy and a little more like the citizens of a free country. My name came first on the plaintiff side because I was the first to sign on, blazing a trail that made it easier for others aggrieved to join later.” (04/14/26)
- Finding the Right Process to Enable Productive Peace Negotiations in the Iran War
Source: Common Dreams
by Connie Peck“Although the international community still knows very little about the highest-level peace talks between the US and Iran in 47 years, facilitated by Shehbaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, some obvious red flags appeared in the morning-after news reports—as JD Vance, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner flew home less than 24 hours after their arrival in Islamabad. As The New York Times reported: ‘Vice President JD Vance summed up the failure of 21 hours of negotiations with Iran in one sentence: ‘They have chosen not to accept our terms.’ To Iranian officials, that line reflected their biggest problem with the talks: The United States they argue, had not come to negotiate.'” (04/14/26)
- From Pencils to Smartphones
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Lawrence W Reed“When Liberty International in collaboration with Libertarianism.org engaged me a year ago to apply the insights of Leonard E. Read’s famous 1958 essay, ‘I, Pencil,’ to the smartphone, I eagerly accepted the challenge. All of us involved in the project believed that it was time to ‘update’ the essay by adapting its message to a product everybody uses today. Why? Because, we thought, pencils are fading into memory, overtaken by a growing number of competing writing implements. Then I ran across some information that surprised me. Global pencil production is actually setting records year after year.” (04/14/26)
- The results are in, and same-sex marriage was a win for children and society
Source: Los Angeles Times
by Benjamin Karney“To build public support for rolling back marriage rights, new campaigns have been repeating the claims that legal recognition of same-sex marriages may harm children or even the stability of different-sex marriages. These are some of the same concerns that were raised in the years prior to the Obergefell decision. They were groundless then, and, more than 10 years later, the data confirm these fears to be unfounded.” (04/14/26)
- Rising, 04/14/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on opposition to self-driving cars from some prominent progressive leftists, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.” (04/14/26)
- Trump Watch, 04/14/26
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“Annihilating People with Sanctions, Embargoes, and Blockades.” (04/14/26)
- Matt Wolfson on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“Matt Wolfson on Underappreciated Danger of the United Arab Emirates.” (04/14/26)
- The Intercept Briefing, 04/14/26
Source: The Intercept
“Amy Goodman on the Media’s ‘Access of Evil.'” (04/14/26)
https://theintercept.com/2026/04/14/amy-goodman-democracy-now-independent-media/
- Capital Record, episode 297
Source: National Review
“Viktor Orbán’s Loss Is a Gain for the Cause of Free Enterprise.” (04/14/26)
- The Bryan Hyde Show, 04/14/26
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
“Eric Peters from Eric Peters Autos joins me to talk current events, cars, and how to stay free in a world where the enslavers pretend they’re doing you a favor.” (04/14/26)
- NPR Politics Podcast, 04/14/26
Source: National Public Radio [US state media]
“The president versus the pope.” (04/14/26)
https://www.npr.org/2026/04/14/nx-s1-5784841/the-president-versus-the-pope
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 04/14/26
Source: The New Republic
“As the president’s retaliation against Pope Leo goes off the rails, a scholar of religion explains why the pope’s criticism of him could prove much more damaging than you might think.” (04/14/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/209018/trump-erupts-rage-pope-harsh-new-rebuke-lands-surprise-blow
- Speech in Vienna on Robotics and the Future of War
Source: Cobden Centre
“[Max Rangeley] recently gave this speech in Vienna, talking through Europe’s lack of a robotics industry compared to the US and China, and the disastrous consequences of this in the event of a major conflict.” (04/14/26)
https://www.cobdencentre.org/2026/04/speech-in-vienna-on-robotics-and-the-future-of-war/
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 04/14/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Who’s Blocking Who In the Strait Of Hormuz?” (04/14/26)
- Pod Save America, 04/14/26
Source: Crooked Media
“The Audacity of Pope.” (04/14/26)
- The Good Fight, 04/14/26
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Ivan Krastev on Why Even Dictators Can’t Escape Democracy.” (04/14/26)
- Compound Interest, 04/14/26
Source: Semafor
“America’s best energy trader on fixing higher ed and the dangers of prediction markets.” (04/14/26)
- Advisory Opinions, 04/14/26
Source: The Dispatch
“Sotomayor vs. Kavanaugh?” (04/14/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/advisoryopinions/sotomayor-vs-kavanaugh/
- The Corbett Report, episode 498
Source: The Corbett Report
“How To Stage A Cover-Up.” (04/14/26)